Canoes
- 160 pages
- 6 hours of reading
A beautiful collection of seven short stories and a novella themed around women's voices from the author of Mend the Living and Painting Time
Kerangal Maylis Book order (chronological)
Maylis de Kerangal writes with a powerful, encompassing style, often exploring the fundamental processes of creation and transformation. Her narratives delve into the physicality of existence, whether it be the building of bridges or the journey of a heart destined for transplant. She possesses a unique ability to render grand, sweeping landscapes and the intimate details of human action with equal clarity. Her prose invites readers to immerse themselves in the very fabric of life and its most profound moments.
Painting Time
- 240 pages
- 9 hours of reading
An aesthetic and existential coming-of-age novel exploring the apprenticeship of a young female painter, Paula Karst, who is enrolled at the famous Institut de Peinture in Brussels. With the attention of a documentary filmmaker, de Kerangal follows Paula's apprenticeship, punctuated by brushstrokes, hard work, sleepless nights, sore muscles, and long, festive evenings. After completing her studies at the Institute, Paula continues to practice her art in Paris, in Moscow, then in Italy on the sets of great films, all as if rehearsing for a grand finale: at a job working on Lascaux IV, a facsimile reproduction of the world's most famous paleolithic cave art and the apotheosis of human cultural expression.